Teledyne Coax Switches announced its selection by Astrium Ltd., Portsmouth, UK, as the supplier for coaxial switch blocks to be used on the Alphasat I-XL satellite programme.
Alphasat I-XL, one of the world’s largest telecommunications satellites, is being built by Astrium for Inmarsat to augment its Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN).
The Teledyne communications satellite heritage, and close cooperation between Teledyne and Astrium engineers in providing technical solutions to the high performance requirements required for the programme has led to the successful completion of the bid process and the issue of a contract by Astrium for both the low power and high power RF switching sections of the payload.
The satellite, with a launch mass of 6,000 Kg and electrical power of 12 kW, is the first payload for the new ESA Alphabus platform and is due for launch in 2012 with a design lifetime of 15 years.
With options for two further Alphasat satellites in the future, and other European and US programmes already ordered or in the bid process, Teledyne Coax Switches looks forward to developing its heritage with existing customers and based on product reliability and supplier recognition, growing new relationships and winning new opportunities within the space market.
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